Bought the Civic Hatch lease out, so rebooting the install thread

[geolemon]

xt-60 panel mounts?

No, they are just my stash of inline XT60 connectors.

For things like my A-pillars and sail panels, where the Xover will be below dash, I'll need a connector anyway to allow the panels to be removed. In theory I could JUST have these connectors, although I wasn't thinking that when I made 3 notches instead of 4 (for the one BG on the A pillar and the other in the door) but I could make the notch double deep...

Either way - fortunately they are very rectangular so I just used what I had rather than order more connectors.

A little plastic bonder and a backup bung glued to the lid and ...GTG!

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[geolemon]

Update:
I have the Xovers assembled and ready to find homes under the dash. The A-pillars basically ready to install - just going to add some CCF behind them, since the domes are self-enclosed.
Since it's still cold and I'm not going to install them yet - I moved onto finishing the lid on the amp rack and basically all the trunk pieces.

Mounted the fan controller flush - it has a display behind the smoke tinted door so it'll look black when off, then the fan speeds will light up behind it.
This fan controller actually has thermocouples that I tucked inside the amp heatsink, so the speed of the fans should be variable with the need for cooling - so even if they are audible at full crank, they shouldn't be operating like that very often. Just a strategy to (nearly) eliminate fan noise.
View attachment 17082

Pop the panel and the door opens so the controls can be accessed. This was made for a PC, so the door opens "down" - fine with me for a control that shouldn't need to be fiddled with much.
View attachment 17083

I took apart my LED kits, de-soldered all the wires from the strips, figured out what lengths I actually needed, and re-soldered them in that configuration.
View attachment 17084

There's now three LED strips in the groove circling the subwoofer (remember there will be a spacer ring/adapter for whichever sub I have in here, then the sub on top of that). I added a 4pin connector coming out the side of this, where it meets the wheelwell. It's mate comes from the LED controller and goes under the coupling chamber, hidden when installed.
View attachment 17086

There is a fourth LED strip in the lower chamber hidden from view connected to the same LED controller (the only one I kept in the factory housing).
View attachment 17088View attachment 17089View attachment 17090

And four LED's on the underside of the frame around the window.
View attachment 17092View attachment 17093
Ignore the mirror pieces in there, I decided against them - I am going to 3D print up a black DLS logo to use in that space instead. Modeled that up tonight.

Basically I have everything pretty well set to install, when it's warm enough again. In the meantime I should have time to test-power everything up on the bench to make sure it truly is ready.

 

[nadams5755]

are the LED strips on the amps frosted to kinda soften them up?

 

[geolemon]

are the LED strips on the amps frosted to kinda soften them up?

No but I might play with that a bit.

They were originally housed in a plastic shroud - the only one still in that is the one down below in the lower chamber because three sides are black and one is clear - but I really wouldn't call that "frosted" either.

I would like to diffuse it a bit, but also not totally kill off the light, so I might play around a little.

Edit:
I found a 1/8" thick transparent mounting tape that I may pick up to play with, if I can find it in 1/4" thickness. I can run that continuously over the LED strip and then have a slightly less transparent tape over the outer adhesive layer.

I am also imagining some scrapbook supply or craft supply shop may have a transparent tape that has a prismatic effect to it - we'll see. Something like that would help.

 

[geolemon]

I modeled this up quick - you can see what look like pixelation artifacts that look like vertical cracks when I stretch it into a 3D shape:
View attachment 17081

So, I ran the printer on "normal" rather than "fine" in hopes of the reduced resolution blurring those away - and it worked out.

Nice.

 

[geolemon]

So the weather has finally gone above freezing, and I thought my best first step at this point - now that I am ready to actually INSTALL - is to start with the head unit.

I bought a Joying head unit specifically made for the Civic - and this one has a Toslink optical out and Android Auto.

However, in an interesting twist, my Civic being the Sport, it came with a non-touchscreen head unit, and my car wasn't optioned with the electronic nannies or lanewatch camera that would display.

Probably 90% of Civics came with the touchscreen head unit - so this head unit is made to emulate one of those.
...which as you can see by the picture I took, the back of the touchscreen and non-touchscreen (and therefore, the car's wiring harnesses) are different.

So, I got to spend time poring through the pinouts of the two factory head units, comparing the three plugs they have in common. And... there's differences.
And comparing to the new harness - more difference.

Fortunately, the differences between the factory head units are related to features I don't have, like Lanewatch. And, the Joying harness differences seem like they might just be a few differences in how some things are integrated - like my factory hands-free mic wiring isn't used, apparently.

So - looks like it is safe to install, even though it wasn't made for this car specifically.

Let's see how it goes.


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[geolemon]

Minor delay -
Had to reach out to Joying tech support by email. Everything worked - except the backup camera, which of course I need to work.

It turns out there actually IS a 3-plug harness variant for the non-navi head units like my Civic Sport. So even though I was cautious and pored through the wiring - I did notice there were some marked camera wires. There's 6 that go to the factory camera. I suspect the 3-plug proper harness for this Civic- specific plug-and-play head unit will fix that issue.

THE GOOD:
Joying support is very responsive. Every email was responded to right away, in English.
And although it took several emails back and forth, they took pictures of harnesses and had me clarify which factory unit I had and which harness of theirs I needed.
So I have a 3-plug harness headed my way.

THE BAD:
Unfortunately since China is halfway around the world, "right away" responses mean a 12 hour turnaround, so it took a week.
And it'll probably take another week or more for delivery.
And of COURSE Murphy's Law - this past week is a Chinese holiday so it won't go out until next week.

I can't complain - it's as good as customer service can get from China, and while I had the unit in, it seemed good.

Unfortunately to install my amp rack and everything else, I need that Toslink output.

Don't have one of those on the factory head unit (temporarily back in), so can't get that installed yet. [emoji24]

But I'm ready, now.

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[geolemon]

I decided I'd take care of a few loose ends.

Installed a white voltmeter inside the rack, for no good reason other than I had it and thought it would high-tech up the inside a little more than just the lights.

I then remembered I never painted the logos back on my Epicenter, so I finally weeded the vinyl and masked it off. If the weather is good tomorrow, I'll spray the logos back on.

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[geolemon]

So I had a can of real dark metallic - not black but darker than the silver disco ball paint.

It mostly had the effect I wanted, except that the lettering for the RCAs and wiring was basically unreadable, so I had to darken that up with a permanent marker in black.

The amp rack doesn't lift so high anyway - one reason for the glitter and LED lights was to draw attention that something was down there... And even if you bend down to bumper level like these pics below - that lettering is really mostly for my install use anyway, like the original tiny lettering was. It's fine.

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[geolemon]

Just waiting on the harness to show up.

As I wait - a thought on Joying customer service:

Realistically, dealing with China directly, there's delays - but I feel like they do have a system in place to do customer service as well as possible. Reasonably impressive.

They offered an option to get it here quicker for $15 - that seems reasonable since it's shipping from China so I did take them up on that - and they did supply a tracking number for one of those Chinese services.

Of course, we'll see when the harness arrives, but so far - I'm not disappointed.

I do have an AAWireless Android Auto adapter, and I did notice that Android Auto had some proprietary menu for engaging Android Auto - so I just might need that tech support once again.

But SO FAR, I'm reasonably impressed and satisfied.

 

[geolemon]

In the meantime, I picked up an engine cover that supposedly has "sound insulation" on the back (looks like Jute with a foil heat shield).

I'm still skeptical if there will be any benefit at all, but having recently had my car serviced and they temporarily screwed something up, I did notice high frequency noise (which was why I went back and they fixed it) from the top of the motor - and figured worst case it dresses up the engine bay.
I picked up some side trim too that Type R Civic came with.
If nothing else, it looks better.

The Civic comes with SOME under hood insulation, but I can always add to that or totally replace that down the road, also.

Really though - I think it's the firewall that I'll want to address, eventually. I don't care so much about engine noise outside the car - it's "in the cabin" that matters to me.

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[geolemon]

A big step towards getting things back on track... I'm ready to do the deed and get this in.

I had a few urgent items in life:

• * Wedding planning as that's getting close...
  * Total rebook of our honeymoon from Hawaii to Barbados after the cruise last-minute cancelled ours...
  * I picked up a new summer toy to replace the motorcycle (now for sale).

But let's get this back on track!
Today worked out surprisingly well.

I've been hiding this rectangular, long-discontinued copper IXOS cable from everyone, as a fun surprise:

I've got a bunch of their NOS fittings as well - I bet you spotted the rectangular 1/0 fittings on my capacitor bars in the amp rack pics earlier and wondered "what the hell?"

Well, that WAS going to work perfectly here since I have two factory 8 or 4 gauge wires in this factory crimp:

The plan WAS to cut them loose, crimp an 8 gauge or 4 gauge ferrule on each, and use one of the IXOS terminals with the two sitting side by side in that rectangular opening, held securely by the two set screws.

But I didn't have any 8 gauge ferrules. And my ferrule crimper only goes to 10 gauge. Son of a...

Wait just a minute. What if... Let's grab the metal shears and:

I mean - it's already crimped securely.
And, it's flat on the bottom and probably makes more contact area:

Hey - let's try. This isn't the system side.

The shape and size fit perfect. Like they were made for that. That's luck.

AND - more importantly - now I'm all set to run the IXOS 1/0 to the back and get this thing installed.

I have another rectangular 1/0 terminal for the other Allen bolt on the battery terminal, all ready for that IXOS power wire.

And also lucky - the negative is pretty ideally set for doing the big-3, with it's ring-friendly design.

Things are coming together - let's get this done before the wedding.

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[geolemon]

So essentially I just ran out of time. You know how it goes - a few work crises, last minute cancellation of our honeymoon sent us scrambling for plan B and plan A was already paid for.
Plus a couple autocross events on a couple weekends, and finding out August would be the last month of a private adult skateboard ramp that I'm a keyholder in "so get some runs in"...

Anyway. No regrets.
Got married.
Got a grade-A honeymoon in Barbados.

Attended a Minis at the Glen event at Watkins Glen where I got to rip 3 runs around the actual track (no passing since we had no safety gear) then a Mini club cruise through wine country... And I had to do some Mini car mods first.

A camping trip the next weekend... Two family picnics the next...

No complaints, that's what it's about.
But that pushed this to the back burner for the month.

Had to post proof that it wasn't [completely] laziness.
Now... It's back on.


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[geolemon]

So I did a couple prep items today.
One - I forgot that I sold my old Civic with the Epicenter knob still in it.
So - a little quick research, the ACR-1 knob is compatible.
And - I have a convenient blank panel in my current Civic.

So I took the ACR-1 apart, hollowed out a ton of plastic from the blank panel (most crazy solid blank panel I've ever seen - not anymore lol) and first drilled for the knob:

Next I pushed it in to locate the LED and drill for that. The plastic is thick, but I think the LED protrudes enough.

Screw the nut back on the shaft and get the knob back on and it's ready to go.

I didn't want to click it in fully, in part because the one tab is held a lot more rigidly with the circuit board and I didn't want to fight to pop it back out... But here's where it goes.
You get the idea.

I like it over on this side too, because passengers won't grab it and crank it.

Also...
The passive Xovers handling the 10k handoff duties of the Bohlender Graebner flat panels to my Focal TN-52s I'm using as supertweeters:

When I built the two passive Xover boxes, I didn't consider that one of my flat panels is on my A pillar (read: dash) and the other is on my sail panel (read: door).

So I made a modification to solder in an additional connector wired in parallel (which fortunately in the impedance i designed it at) so now there's two XT connectors for the two mids per side:

I'm really ready to get it in, I think.
I still have to get the amp rack fans wired for power but that's not much.

I don't want to underestimate the actual install - but everything is here and ready to go.